But to assure my soul, that none
Shall ever wed with Marmion.
Had fortune my last hope betray'd,
This packet to the king convey'd,
Had given him to the headsman's stroke,
Although my heart that instant broke.—
Now, men of death, work forth your will,
For I can suffer, and be still;

And, come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last.

XXXI.

"Yet dread me, from my living tomb,
Ye vassal slaves of bloody Rome!
If Marmion's late remorse should wake,
Full soon such vengeance will be take,
That you shall wish the fiery Dane
Had rather been your guest again.
Behind, a darker hour ascends!
The altars quake, the crosier bends,
The ire of a despotic king

Rides forth upon destruction's wing.

Then shall these vaults, so strong and deep,
Burst open to the sea-wind's sweep;
Some traveller then shall find my bones,
Whitening amid disjointed stones,
And, ignorant of priests' cruelty,
Marvel such relics here should be.".

XXXII.

Fix'd was her look, and stern her air; Back from her shoulders stream'd her hair; The locks, that wont her brow to shade, Stared up erectly from her head; Her figure seem'd to rise more high; Her voice, despair's wild energy Had given a tone of prophecy. Appall'd the astonish'd conclave sate; With stupid eyes, the men of fate Gazed on the late inspired form, And listen'd for the avenging storm; The judges felt the victim's dread; No hand was moved, no word was said, Till thus the abbot's doom was given, Raising his sightless balls to heaven :"Sister let thy sorrows cease; Sinful brother, part in peace!" From that dire dungeon, place of doom Of execution, too, and tomb,

Paced forth the judges three; Sorrow it were, and shame, to tell The butcher-work that there befel, When they had glided from the cell Of sin and misery.

XXXIII.

A hundred winding steps convey
That conclave to the upper day;
But, ere they breathed the fresher air,
They heard the shriekings of despair,

And many a stifled groan:

With speed their upward way they take, (Such speed as age and fear can make,)

And cross'd themselves for terror's sake, As hurrying, tottering on; E'en in the vesper's heavenly tone They seem'd to hear a dying groan,

And bade the passing knell to toll
For welfare of a parting soul.
Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung,
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;
To Warkworth cell the echoes roll'd,
His beads the wakeful hermit told;
The Bamborough peasant raised his head,
But slept ere half his prayer he said;
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostrils to the wind,
Listed before, aside, behind,

Then couch'd him down beside the hind,
And quaked among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound so dull and stern.

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO III.
TO WILLIAM ERSKINE, ESQ.
Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest
LIKE April morning clouds, that pass,
With varying shadow, o'er the grass,
And imitate, on field and furrow;
Life checker'd scene of joy and sorrow;
Like streamlet of the mountain north,
Now in a torrent racing forth,
Now winding slow its silver train,
And almost slumbering on the plain;
Like breezes of the autumn day,
Whose voice inconstant dies away,
And ever swells again as fast,
When the ear deems its murmur past;
Thus various, my romantic theme
Flits, winds, or sinks, a morning dream.
Yet pleased, our eye pursues the trace
Of light and shade's inconstant race;
Pleased, views the rivulet afar,
Weaving its maze irregular;
And pleased, we listen as the breeze
Heaved its wild sigh through autumn trees;
Then wild as cloud, or stream, or gale,
Flow on, flow unconfined, my tale.
Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell,

I love the license all too well,
In sounds now lowly, and now strong,
To raise the desultory song?-
Oft, when 'mid such capricious chime,
Some transient fit of lofty rhyme,
To thy kind judgment seem'd excuse
For many an error of the muse;
Oft hast thou said, "If, still mis-spent,
Thine hours to poetry are lent:
Go, and, to tame thy wandering course,
Quaff from the fountain at the source;
Approach those masters, o'er whose tomb,
Immortal laurels ever bloom:

Instructive of the feebler bard,

Still from the grave their voice is heard;
From them, and from the path they show'd
Choose honour'd guide and practised road;
Nor ramble on through brake and maze,
With harpers rude of barbarous day.

"Or, deem'st thou not our later time, Yields topic meet for classic rhyme ?

Hast thou no elegiac verse

For Brunswick's venerable hearse?
What! not a line, a tear, a sigh,
When valour bleeds for liberty!
O, hero of that glorious time,
When, with unrivall'd light sublime,—
Though martial Austria, and though all
The might of Russia, and the Gaul,
Though banded Europe stood her foes-
The star of Brandenburgh arose !
Thou couldst not live to see her beam
Forever quench'd in Jena's stream.
Lamented chief!-It was not given,
To thee to change the doom of heaven,
And crush that dragon in its birth,
Predestined scourge of guilty earth.
Lamented chief!-not thine the power,
To save in that presumptuous hour,
When Prussia hurried to the field,

And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield!
Valour and skill 'twas thine to try,
And, tried in vain, 'twas thine to die.
Ill had it seem'd thy silver hair
The last, the bitterest pang to share,
For princedoms reft, and scutcheons riven,
And birthrights to usurpers given;

Thy lands, thy children's wrongs to feel,
And witness woes thou couldst not heal!
On thee relenting heaven bestows
For honour'd life an honour'd close;
And when revolves, in time's sure change,
The hour of Germany's revenge,
When, breathing fury for her sake,
Some new Arminius shall awake.
Her champion, ere he strike, shall come
To whet his sword on Brunswick's tomb.
"Or of the Red-Cross hero teach,
Dauntless in dungeon as on breach:
Alike to him the sea, the shore,
The brand, the bridal, or the oar;
Alike to him the war that calls

Its votaries to the shatter'd walls
Which the grim Turks besmear'd with blood,
Against the invincible made good;

Or that, whose thundering voice could wake
The silence of the polar lake,

When stubborn Russ, and metall'd Swede,
On the warp'd wave their death-game play'd;
Or that, where vengeance and affright
Howl'd round the father of the fight,
Who snatch'd, on Alexander's sand,
The conqueror's wreath with dying hand.
"Or, if to touch such chord be thine,
Restore the ancient tragic line,
And emulate the notes that rung
From the wild harp, which silent hung,
By silver Avon's holy shore,

Till twice an hundred years roll'd o'er;
When she, the bold enchantress, came,
With fearless hand and heart on flame!
From the pale willow snatch'd the treasure,
And swept it with a kindred measure;
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love,
Awakening at th' inspired strain,
Deem'd their own Shakspeare lived again."
81

Thy friendship thus thy judgment wrong

ing,

With praises not to me belonging,

In task more meet for mightiest powers, Wouldst thou engage my thriftless hours. But say, my Erskine, hast thou weigh'd That secret power by all obey'd, Which warps not less the passive mind, Its source conceal'd or undefined; Whether an impulse, that has birth Soon as the infant wakes on earth, One with our feelings and our powers, And rather part of us than ours; Or whether fitlier term'd the sway Of habit, form'd in early day? Howe'er derived, its force confess'd Rules with despotic sway the breast, And drags us on by viewless chain, While taste and reason plead in vain. Look east, and ask the Belgian why, Beneath Batavia's sultry sky, He seeks not, eager to inhale, The freshness of the mountain gale, Content to rear his whiten'd wall Beside the dank and dull canal? He'll say, from youth he loved to see The white sail gliding by the tree. Or see yon weather-beaten hind, Whose sluggish herds before him wind, Whose tatter'd plaid and rugged cheek His northern clime and kindred speak; Through England's laughing meads he goes, And England's wealth around him flows; Ask, if it would content him well, At ease in these gay plains to dwell, Where hedge-rows spread a verdant screen, And spires and forests intervene, And the neat cottage peeps between ? No, not for these will he exchange His dark Lochaber's boundless range; Nor for fair Devon's meads forsake Bennevis gray and Garry's lake.

Thus, while I ape the measure wild Of tales that charm'd me yet a child, Rude though they be, still with the chime, Return the thoughts of early time; And feelings, roused in life's first day, Glow in the line, and prompt the lay. Then rise those crags, that mountain tower, Which charm'd my fancy's wakening hour. Though no broad river swept along To claim, perchance, heroic song; Though sigh'd no groves in summer gale, To prompt of love a softer tale; Though scarce a puny streamlet's speed Claim'd homage from a shepherd's reed; Yet was poetic impulse given, By the green hill and clear blue heaven. It was a barren scene, and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled; But ever and anon between Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; And well the lonely infant knew Recesses where the wall-flower grew, And honeysuckle loved to crawl Up the low crag and ruin'd wall. 3H 2

I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade
The sun in all his round survey'd ;

And still I thought that shatter'd tower

The mightiest work of human power;

And marvell'd, as the aged hind

With some strange tale bewitch'd my mind,

Of forayers, who, with headlong force,

Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse,
Their southern rapine to renew,

Far in the distant Cheviot's blue,
And home returning, fill'd the hall
With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl.-
Methought that still with trump and clang
The gateway's broken arches rang;
Methought grim features, seam'd with scars,
Glared through the window's rusty bars.
And ever, by the winter hearth,
Old tales I heard of wo or mirth,
Of lovers' sleights, of ladies' charms,

Of witches' spells, of warriors' arms;
Of patriot battles, won of old,

By Wallace wight and Bruce the bold;
Of later fields of feud and fight,
When, pouring from their highland height,
The Scottish clans in headlong sway,
Had swept the scarlet ranks away.
While, stretch'd at length upon the floor,
Again I fought each combat o'er,
Pebbles and shells, in order laid,
The mimic ranks of war display'd;
And onward still the Scottish lion bore,
And still the scatter'd Southron fled before.
Still, with vain fondness, could I trace,
Anew, each kind familiar face,
That brighten'd at our evening fire;
From the thatch'd mansion's gray-hair'd sire,
Wise without learning, plain and good,
And sprung of Scotland's gentler blood;
Whose eye in age, quick, clear, and keen,
Show'd what in youth its glance had been;
Whose doom discording neighbours sought,
Content with equity unbought;
To him the venerable priest,
Our frequent and familiar guest,
Whose life and manners well could paint
Alike the student and the saint;
Alas! whose speech too oft I broke
With gambol rude and timeless joke:
For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child;
But, half a plague, and half a jest,
Was still endured, beloved, carest.

From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
The classic poet's well-conn'd task?
Nay, Erskine, nay,-on the wild hill
Let the wild heathbell flourish still;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
But freely let the woodbine twine,
And leave untrimm'd the eglantine:
Nay, my friend, nay,-since oft thy praise
Hath given fresh vigour to my lays,
Since oft thy judgment could refine
My flatten'd thought, or cumbrous line,
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
And in the minstrel spare the friend;
Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
Flow forth, flow unrestrain'd, my tale!

CANTO III.

THE HOSTEL, OR INN.

I.

THE livelong day Lord Marmion rode. The mountain path the palmer show'd; By glen and streamlet winded still, Where stunted birches hid the rill. They might not choose the lowland road, For the Merse forayers were abroad, Who, fired with hate and thirst of prey, Had scarcely fail'd to bar their way. Oft on the trampling band, from crown Of some tall cliff, the deer look'd down; On wing of jet, from his repose In the deep heath, the black cock rose; Sprung from the gorse the timid roe, Nor waited for the bending bow; And when the stony path began, By which the naked peak they wan, Up flew the snowy ptarmigan. The noon had long been past before They gain'd the height of Lammermoor; Thence winding down the northern way, Before them, at the closing day, Old Gifford's towers and hamlet lay.

II.

No summons calls them to the tower,
To spend the hospitable hour.
To Scotland's camp the lord was gone,
His cautious dame, in bower alone,
Dreaded her castle to unclose,
So late, to unknown friends or foes.

On through the hamlet as they paced,
Before a porch, whose front was graced
With bush and flaggon trimly placed,

Lord Marmion drew his reign:
The village inn seem'd large, though rude:
Its cheerful fire and hearty food

Might well relieve his train.

Down from their seats the horsemen sprang,
With jingling spurs the court-yard rang;
They bind their horses to the stall,
For forage, food, and firing call,
And various clamour fills the hall;
Weighing the labour with the cost,
Toils everywhere the bustling host.

III.

Soon, by the chimney's merry blaze,
Through the rude hostel might you gaze;
Might see, where in dark nook aloof,
The rafters of the sooty roof

Bore wealth of winter cheer;
Of sea fowl dried, and solands store,
And gammons of the tusky boar,
And savoury haunch of deer.
The chimney arch projected wide;
Above, around it, and beside,

Were tools for housewifes' hand:
Nor wanted, in that martial day,
The implements of Scottish fray,

The buckler, lance, and brand. Beneath its shade, the place of state, On oaken settle Marmion sate,

And view'd, around the blazing hearth,
His followers mix in noisy mirth,
When with brown ale, in jolly tide,
From ancient vessels ranged aside,
Full actively their host supplied.

IV.

Theirs was the glee of martial breast, And laughter theirs at little jest ; And oft Lord Marmion deign'd to aid, And mingle in the mirth they made: For though, with men of high degree, The proudest of the proud was he, Yet, train❜d in camps, he knew the art To win the soldier's hardy heart. They love a captain to obey, Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May; With open hand, and brow as free, Lover of wine and minstrelsy, Ever the first to scale a tower, As venturous in a ladye's bower:Such buxom chief shall lead his host From India's fires to Zembla's frost.

By fits less frequent from the crowd Was heard the burst of laughter loud; For still as squire and archer stared On that dark face and matted beard, Their glee and game declined. All gaze at length in silence drear, Unbroke, save when in comrade's ear Some yeomen, wondering in his fear, Thus whisper'd forth his mind: "Saint Mary! saw'st thou ere such sight? How pale his cheek, his eye how bright, Whene'er the firebrand's fickle light

Glances beneath his cowl! Full on our lord he sets his eye; For his best palfray, would not I Endure that sullen scowl.”—

VII.

But Marmion, as to chase the awe

Which thus had quell'd their hearts, who saw The ever-varying firelight show

That figure stern and face of wo,

Now call'd upon a squire:

"Fitz Eustace, know'st thou not some lay,
To speed the lingering night away?
We slumber by the fire."

VIII.

"So please you," thus the youth rejoin'd, "Our choicest minstrel's left behind.

Ill may we hope to please your ear, Accustom'd Constant's strains to hear. The harp full deftly can he strike, And wake the lover's lute alike; To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush Sings livelier from a springtide bush; No nightingale her lovelorn tune More sweetly warbles to the moon. Wo to the cause, whate'er it be, Detains from us his melody, Lavish'd on rocks, and billows stern, Or duller monks of Lindisfern. Now must I venture, as I may, To sing his favourite roundelay."

IX.

A mellow voice Fitz-Eustace had,
The air he chose was wild and sad;
Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On lowland plains, the ripen'd ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song:
Oft have I listen'd, and stood still,

As it came soften'd up the hill,
And deem'd it the lament of men
Who languish'd for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be such sound,
On Susquehannah's swampy ground,
Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake,
Or wild Ontario's boundless lake,
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recall'd fair Scotland's hills again!

In the lost battle,

Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle

With groans of the dying.

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. There shall he be lying.

Her wing shall the eagle flap

O'er the false-hearted,

His warm blood the wolf shall lap,

Ere life be parted. Shame and dishonour sit

By his grave ever ; Blessing shall hallow it,Never, O never.

CHORUS.

Eleu loro, &c. Never, O never.

XII.

It ceased, the melancholy sound,
And silence sunk on all around.
The air was sad; but sadder still
It fell on Marmion's ear,

And plain'd as if disgrace and ill,

And shameful death were near.
He drew his mantle past his face,
Between it and the band,
And rested with his head a space,

Reclining on his hand.

His thoughts I scan not; but I ween,
That, could their import have been seen,
The meanest groom in all the hall,
T'hat e'er tied courser to a stall,

Would scarce have wish'd to be their prey,
For Lutterward and Fontenaye.

XIII.

High minds, of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse!
Fear, for their scourge, mean villains have-
Thou art the torturer of the brave!
Yet fatal strength they boast, to steel
Their minds to bear the wounds they feel.
E'en while they writhe beneath the smart
Of civil conflict in the heart.

For soon Lord Marmion raised his head,
And, smiling, to Fitz-Eustace said,-
"Is it not strange, that, as ye sung,
Seem'd in mine ear a death-peal rung,
Such as in nunneries they toll
For some departing sister's soul?

Say, what may this portend!"—
Then first the palmer silence broke
(The livelong day he had not spoke,)
"The death of a dear friend."

XIV.

Marmion, whose steady heart and eye
Ne'er changed in worst extremity;
Marmion, whose soul could scantly brook,
E'en from his king a haughty look;
Whose accent of command controll'd,
In camps, the boldest of the bold-
Thought, look, and utterance, fail'd him now,
Fallen was his glance, and flush'd his brow;

For either in the tone,

Or something in the palmer's look,
So full upon his conscience strook,
That answer he found none.
Thus oft it haps, that when within
They shrink at sense of secret sin,
A feather daunts the brave,
A fool's wise speech confounds the wise,
And proudest princes veil their eyes
Before their meanest slave.

XV.

Well might he falter!-by his aid
Was Constance Beverly betray'd;
Not that he augur'd of the doom,
Which on the living closed the tomb:
But, tired to hear the desperate maid
Threaten by turns, beseech, upbraid:
And wroth, because, in wild despair,
She practised on the life of Clare;
Its fugitive the church he gave,
Though not a victim, but a slave;
And deem'd restraint in convent strange
Would hide her wrongs and her revenge.
Himself, proud Henry's favourite peer,
Held Romish thunders idle fear;
Secure his pardon he might hold,
For some slight mulct of penance gold.
Thus judging, he gave secret way,
When the stern priests surprised their prey;
His train but deem'd the favourite page
Was left behind, to spare his age;
Or other if they deem'd, none dared
To mutter what he thought and heard:
Wo to the vassal, who durst pry
Into Lord Marmion's privacy!

XVI.

His conscience slept-he deem'd her well,
And safe secured in distant cell;
But, waken'd by her favourite lay,
And that strange palmer's boding say,
That fell so ominous and drear,
Full on the object of his fear,
To aid remorse's venom'd throes,
Dark tales of convent vengeance rose;
And Constance, late betray'd and scorn'd
All lovely on his soul return'd;
Lovely as when, at treacherous call,
She left her convent's peaceful wall,
Crimson'd with shame, with terror mute.
Dreading alike escape, pursuit,
Till love, victorious o'er alarms,
Hid fears and blushes in his arms.

XVII.

"Alas!" he thought, "how changed that mien!
How changed these timid looks have been,
Since years of guilt, and of disguise,
Have steel'd her brow, and arm'd her eyes;
No more of virgin terror speaks
The blood that mantles in her cheeks;
Fierce, and unfeminine, are there,
Frenzy for joy, for grief, despair;
And I the cause-for whom were given
Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven!